Illuminated jewelry has been known in the prior art for some time. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,018,053 to Belknap et al. on May 21, 1991; U.S. Pat. No. 4,779,172 to Jimenez et al. on Oct. 18, 1988; U.S. Pat. No. 4,093,973 to Vaagenes on Jun. 6, 1978; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,262,324 to Murphy on Apr. 14, 1981. All of these devices teach illuminated jewelry of varying degrees of complexity. While these devices may be suitable for the particular purpose to which they address, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present invention as heretofore described. For example, the Belknap, Vaagenes, and Murphy devices teach jewelry having relatively simple illumination circuits that have no intermittent illumination quality. The Jimenez device does teach an intermittently illuminated quality, but it includes an additional, separate electrical flasher component to accomplish this, which makes such a device relatively expensive to manufacture.
Further, such prior art devices are not suitable for use with a metallic chain, which is aesthetically desirable with pendent type necklaces. While the Murphy device teaches an illuminated pendent and a chain conductor shown in FIG. 5 of the Murphy Patent, the chain conductors as shown tend to short, preventing the pendent from illuminating and quickly draining the battery. Further, the Murphy device does not teach intermittent illumination of the pendent, which is aesthetically desirable and eye catching. The preferred embodiment of the Murphy device includes a wire conductor covered by an "aesthetically pleasing" textile insulator. However, many people feel that such textile insulators are not as aesthetically pleasing as gold, silver, or other types of metallic chains, when used with jewelry.
Still further, all of the prior art devices have the drawback of including replaceable batteries that become drained of energy after prolonged use. Users of such devices, as a result, tend not to illuminate these devices as often as they would like so as to preserve battery life.
Clearly, then, there is a need for an illuminated necklace that is at once inexpensive to manufacture and provides for intermittent illumination of a pendent component. Such intermittent illumination of the pendent component would correlate to some extent to body motion, making such a needed device particularly eye catching and aesthetically appealing. Such a needed device would provide an aesthetically pleasing metallic chain, as well as a variety of illuminated pendent designs. Such a needed device would be solar recharging, thereby allowing for more prolonged and continuous use. The present invention fulfills these needs and provides further related advantages.